Cuba

2011

New York, September 7, 2011--The Committee to Protect
Journalists condemns the Cuban government's decision to not renew press
credentials held by a 20-year veteran correspondent for the Spanish daily El
País and radio network Cadena SER. Mauricio Vicent, whose access to official
events had been restricted by the government for the past year, is now
prohibited from reporting stories from Cuba, according to El
País.

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New
York, April 20, 2011--The Committee to Protect
Journalists is alarmed by a string of recent arrests of journalists from the
Havana-based news outlet Centro de
Información Hablemos Press, preventing them from reporting on the Communist
Party Congress held in Havana
this week. CPJ called on the Cuban government to cease its persistent
harassment of independent journalists and allow them to report freely.

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New York, April 8,
2011--The Cuban government on Thursday released the last journalist remaining
in its prisons, ending a dark, eight-year-long era in which the island nation was
one of the world's worst jailers of the press, at one time imprisoning nearly
30 independent reporters and writers. The Committee to Protect Journalists
expressed relief today that Albert Santiago Du Bouchet Hernández has been freed, a
milestone in an intensive, international advocacy effort led by the Catholic
Church, the Spanish government, and international press and human rights groups.

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New York, March 7,
2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release of Cuban
independent journalist Pedro Argüelles Morán on Friday, and calls on Cuban
authorities to eliminate all conditions on his freedom. Argüelles Morán, at left, was the
last of 29 reporters arrested during a 2003 massive government crackdown on
dissent to be allowed to leave jail, on parole.

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New York, February 22, 2011--Iván Hernández Carrillo, a Cuban
journalist imprisoned since March 2003, was released on parole Saturday and
permitted to remain in the country, bringing to 19 the number of reporters and
editors freed after an agreement between the President Raúl Castro and the
Catholic Church. The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Cuban
authorities today to lift all conditions on Hernández Carrillo's release and to
free the two journalists that remain imprisoned on the island.

In Latin America, A Return of Censorship

By Carlos Lauría

As the preeminent political family in the northeastern state of Maranhão for more than 40 years, the Sarneys are used to getting their way in Brazilian civic life. So when the leading national daily O Estado de S. Paulo published allegations in June 2009 that linked José Sarney, the Senate president and the nation's former leader, to nepotism and corruption, the political clan did not sit idly by. The Sarneys turned to a judge in Brasília, winning an injunction that halted O Estado from publishing any more reports about the allegations. Eighteen months later, as 2010 came to a close, the ban remained in effect despite domestic and international outcry.

After years of intensive advocacy and international diplomacy, 17 independent journalists swept up in the government's 2003 Black Spring crackdown were finally freed from an unjust and inhumane imprisonment. The Roman Catholic Church, with participation from Spanish officials, struck an agreement in July with the government of President Raúl Castro Ruz that called for the release of all 52 prisoners still being held seven years after the massive crackdown on political dissent and independent journalism. The deal as outlined by the church called for the release of all Black Spring detainees within four months, but three journalists and several other dissidents, apparently balking at Cuba's insistence that they leave the country in exchange for their freedom, remained in jail in late year. A fourth journalist, arrested in 2009, also remained in prison.

New
York, February 14, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Cuban
authorities today to place no conditions on the release of journalist Héctor
Maseda Gutiérrez, who was freed on parole Saturday. Maseda Gutiérrez is a founding member of the independent
news agency Grupo de Trabajo Decoro and a winner of CPJ's International Press
Freedom Award in 2008.

New York, February 11, 2011--The Catholic Church in Havana announced today that jailed Cuban journalist Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez, a CPJ International Press Freedom Awardee, at left, would be released after nearly eight years behind bars. But news reports, including one citing the journalist's wife, said Maseda Gutiérrez has balked at conditions placed on his release and at the continued detention of other political dissidents.

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Dear President Rodríguez Zapatero: The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed that the Cuban government has yet to fulfill its promise to free all journalists imprisoned during the 2003 crackdown on dissent. We urge your government, which was a key party to the agreement to release the prisoners by November 2010, to hold President Raúl Castro to his word.